“Adulting” can be defined (at least by me) as “acting like the adult in the room, being responsible, keeping calm and reasonable – when what you really want to start smacking a bunch of freakin’ idiots upside the head with a baseball bat because they’re freakin’ idiots and really, really deserve it.”

Most of you know what I’m talking about.

Remember those times you had to count slowly backwards from twenty-five in Klingon to avoid spending some time as a guest of the city, county, state, or federal penal system? Yeah, those times.

This week has had more than its fair share of those moments, and today in particular felt like just one after the other.

So – adulting sucks!

Which is fine. Having recognized the universal truth therein, we somehow manage to muddle through to a better state of mind, even while we wonder why those freakin’ idiots are hit by a bolt of lightning out of a clear, blue sky. (Not enough smiting being handed down by a wrathful god these days, if you ask me!)

But why does it feel so much worse all of a sudden?

It came to me while flipping past the news. (As a side note, I would kill for a pill that I could take so I wouldn’t have to listen or see any political news until mid-November.)

The reason we go around adulting when we really want to go around slapping some sense into stupid people is because of the penalties involved. At best, people think we’re a flaming asshole and we’re socially shunned. (Except perhaps by other flaming assholes, but who wants to be around them?) We don’t want to be kicked out of the herd just for breaking social norms.

Abandoning our adulting ways could have permanent effects on our ability to earn a living, to have friends, to have people who can stand to be in the same room with us. As bad as adulting sucks, the consequences imposed by society for not adulting are much worse.

Unless you’re a current candidate for the US Presidency and you’re a smug, crude, ignorant, delusional, racist, hate-filled, misogynistic, jingoistic, pea-brained, dim witted, congenital liar who wants us to believe he’s the next coming of Christ and Buckaroo Banzai all rolled up into one.

This disgusting waste of flesh not only wouldn’t know adulting if it bit him in the ass, but no matter what he does, no matter how clinically insane, he has no negative consequences. His fortunes just continue to rise and rise and rise.

So why should we have to adult when he doesn’t?

And there we find the next level of the problem. We adult because people who don’t disgust us. But now an army of minions, most of whom are as racist, bigoted, ignorant, and clueless as their leader is, are crawling out from under their rocks and making our world a mess. They had been hiding in the dark with the slime molds, where they belong, but now it’s fashionable for them to come out into the light of day where they we have to put up with them and even more of their bullshit.

While we’re busing adulting and trying to carry on because we’re sane and good, despite the rising tide of hatred and ignorance.